Will Forte spoofs home renovation shows on 'Flipped'

Will Forte and Kaitlin Olson take on a home renovation project in the Quibi series "Flipped." Photo courtesy of Quibi

Jann (Will Forte) and Cricket Melfi (Kaitlin Olson) try to host a home renovation show on "Flipped." Photo courtesy of Quibi

LOS ANGELES- April 6 (UPI) -- HGTV is the home of series like Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Fixer Upper, A Very Brady Renovation, Property Brothers and more. Will Forte's comedy, Flipped, takes aim at those HGTV shows on the new streaming service Quibi.

"Those things are already exaggerated as is," Forte told UPI in a phone interview. "So we got to do an exaggeration of an exaggeration, which was really, really fun."

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In Flipped, Jann (Forte) and Cricket (Kaitlin Olson, of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia) Melfi want to audition to get their own home renovation show. They find a decrepit old house for their project. Forte said it was easy to mimic an HGTV host.

"There's a definite style to all these people, but there's a real energy and enthusiasm that is the common thread in those shows," Forte said. "When you watch a couple of those shows you go, 'Oh, OK, I know what this is supposed to be' and you find a way to do your version of that.

A lot of the comedy on Flipped comes from Jann and Cricket's incompetence. He was fired as a school drama teacher, and she was fired from a Home Depot, but both believe they are misunderstood visionaries.

"They are completely overconfident when they should not be at all, and it somehow works out for them," Forte said. "They keep failing up."

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At first, Jann and Cricket bumble through renovations and television production. The comedy veers in a different direction, however, when they find something left behind by the previous owner. Forte confirms each 10-minute episode of Flipped escalates the one prior.

"I can't give away any spoilers, but yes, it does continue to zig and zag and find new ways to escalate," Forte said. "You never really know exactly where the show's going to go, so I loved doing it because it was very well written."

Forte re-teamed with his Groundlings friends Damon Jones and Steve Mallory, who created and wrote Flipped.

"A really delightful element was getting to spend time with those guys that I haven't seen in a while," Forte said.

He also is returning to his old Saturday Night Live stomping grounds, NBC, for its upcoming streaming service, Peacock.

"Oh yes, I want a taste of all the streamers," Forte joked.

For Peacock, Forte is developing a streaming series of MacGruber, based on his Saturday Night Live character and his feature film adaptation. The film bombed in 2010, but has amassed a cult following.

"It's like a fever dream," Forte said. "Even right after the movie bombed at the box office, John [Solomon] and Jorma [Taccone] and I all agreed that that couldn't be the last time that we did Magruber. Now that it's more than 10 years after the movie came out, and we're still in the running to actually get out and do another Magruber, it's really a dream come true."

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MacGruber was a spoof of MacGyver, the TV hero who could fashion useful devices out of items he found on his adventures. MacGruber, on the other hand, is totally incompetent. Forte said the streaming incarnation will be a serialized adventure.

"They're not going to be standalones," Forte said. "It will be basically one mission that's set up in the first episode. Each episode is the next step in completing that mission. The completion of the mission would be the end. But, do we complete it? I'm not going to give away that spoiler."

MacGruber was an R-rated movie with some outrageous scenes. Forte says Peacock has not said no to any such jokes for the series.

"As far as I know, there are no restrictions as of yet," Forte said. "One of the nightmare scenarios is when you get notes that you don't want to do. It seems like so far, any note they've given has made it even better."

Such was also the case with Quibi, Forte said.

"They were just wonderful in letting the writers do their own thing [and] gave smart notes," Forte said. "Then, when we were on set, they would be there, but it was only great notes. Or, if they didn't have a note, they wouldn't say anything, which also isn't always the case."

Even with MacGruber on the horizon, Forte hopes there's a second season of Flipped.

"I would be hoping that we get to do a second one, but if we don't, the experience of that first one was a really, really incredible one," Forte said.

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Quibi is available on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. New episodes are available daily.